


Gingerbread

by GabesBeanie



Series: Merry Christmas, Darlin' [4]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: 25 Days of Christmas, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Brotherly Love, Gen, Texting, genyatta if you squint - Freeform, gingerbread, shimada bros, shimadas love pizza
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 18:31:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12917745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GabesBeanie/pseuds/GabesBeanie
Summary: 4/25 Days of Christmas || GingerbreadNothing brings families together like making sugary houses out of cookies.





	Gingerbread

Hanzo was spread out on the couch of his modestly-sized apartment, dressed down in his coziest sweatpants. He was zoning out to some mindless TV when a text came in.

                 **Genji** |  _Bro! You mind if I bring Zen over tonight??_

                 **Genji**  |  _I’ll bring pizza!_ _:0_

Hanzo chuckled and rolled his eyes, allowing himself a nice deep stretch before he bothered replying.

                 **Me**  |  _I was going to say yes, but now it is determined by the type of pizza you bring._

                 **Genji**  |  _Rude!_

Hanzo snickered.

Genji agreed to buy both the four-cheese and the meat pizza that their favorite restaurant served. They both loved pizza, especially since it was so much cheaper in the States than in Japan. Their family had often preferred more traditional foods, so it was rare that they could indulge if at all. It quickly became a guilty pleasure for them both when they first moved.

Genji surprised him with another text.

                 **Genji**  |  _u can invite your boyfriend over, too_ _;)_

Hanzo scoffed. They were hardly “boyfriends.” But…

He opened up his chat with Jesse, smiling faintly at their last conversation from earlier that day.

                 **Me**  |  _are you free this evening?_

                 **Me**  |  _my brother is bringing pizza and a friend over if you would like to join us_

He got up and slipped into his room, opting to change into jeans if they were going to have guests over. Running his fingers over his rumpled shirt, he quickly glanced in the mirror to make sure he was presentable.

His hair tie snapped in his fingers as he redid his topknot. He’d just finished smoothing a hand over his hair when his phone vibrated.

                 **Jesse**  |  _hey darlin’!_ _:D_

                 **Jesse**  |  _I’m working the closing shift tonight_ _:(_

                 **Jesse**  |  _much rather be hangin’ with you, this sucks_

Hanzo laughed outright at the indignant tone in the texts. Damn. It was a shame that he wasn’t able to come over. It would have been a good atmosphere to introduce him to his brother, he had a feeling that they would get along.

                 **Me**  |  _We will get together another time, then_

                 **Jesse**  |  _Is it a date?_ _;)_

Hanzo paused for a moment, enjoying the warmth that simple text filled him with.

                 **Me**  |  _Yes._

His messenger showed Jesse typing, then stopping, then typing again. The little dots taunted him with their dance across the bottom of the screen.

                 **Jesse**  |  _aw shucks_

                 **Jesse**  |  _now I really wish I didn’t have to work_ _D: D:_

There was a thumping knock on the door and Hanzo trotted over to open it. His brother rushed in, arms laden with pizza boxes, while his friend followed more sedately.

“Thank you both for the invitation,” Zenyatta said, offering a small bow. His voice was deep, yet somehow light and melodic. It wasn’t surprising that Genji actually listened to this man. He was dressed in a large cable-knit sweater that seemed to hang off his lithe frame, a dark compression shirt visible underneath. The very air around him seemed to radiate contentment and Hanzo felt himself relax subtly.

Hanzo bowed back and took the back of drinks from his guest’s hands, “a pleasure to meet you in person. Genji speaks non-stop of you.”

“Hey,” Genji called from the kitchen. “Your boyfriend gonna hang tonight?”

“No,” Hanzo grunted, ignoring the jibe for the moment. “He is closing at the shop tonight.”

“Bummer! I wanted to meet this studly cowboy you’ve been texting.” He rummaged through another bag on the table and pulled out two flat boxes. “And I wanted us to make these!”

Hanzo reached over and grabbed one. “Gingerbread houses?”

“Yeah! Zen told me about them!”

Zenyatta nodded, “I discovered them a few years ago. It contains gingerbread cookies that you form into a house using icing and candy.” He chuckled, “They are quite fun.”

Genji beamed.

If one thing was for certain, it was that Hanzo was weak to resist when Genji looked so excited over something this childish.

“Fine. We will make these after we eat.”

Genji whooped and immediately flipped open a box of pizza, “いただきます!”

=x=x=x=

It didn’t take very long for Hanzo to admit that he liked Zenyatta. He positively exuded tranquility yet wasn’t at all afraid to tease or even laugh at a crude joke.

And Genji so obviously thought the world of him.

“I was told that it was you who recommended that Genji learn Tai Chi,” Zenyatta commended at one point. They were all lounged in the living room, Zenyatta folded up on one side of the couch while Hanzo sat at the other end. Genji opted to sit on the floor in front of the coffee table.

Hanzo nodded, swallowing a bite of his pizza, “Yes. After we moved here from our previous home in Hanamura, we both were…. Troubled. Our home life had been turbulent enough for us both to decide to leave and start a new life in the States.”

That was a vast understatement, but he didn’t feel it was the time to divulge his woes on a guest. Zenyatta politely motioned for him to continue. “I had just gotten my first job,” he continued. “But Genji had yet to have such luck. Our English was still quite lax, and it was complicating our interviews. I was lucky enough to be hired under a very understanding Chinese woman.”

He cleared his throat, knowing that he hadn’t even told Genji this next bit. “I started to see in him what I used to be—angry, bitter, waspish towards small things… After we left, I swore to not become that sort of person again, and I couldn’t sit idly by while it consumed my brother. While I was able to find peace through meditation, I knew Genji would not appreciate the isolation and silence.” He cracked a small smile, “He has always shown brightest amongst friends and activity.”

Genji was staring up at him, still mid-chew, as he listened to this new information.

“I found a flyer for your studio on an ad board in the shop,” Hanzo went on, gently rubbing crumbs from his fingers. “It took a few days, but I managed to convince him to go. After he came back from that first class, smiling and vibrant and going on about his teacher… I was sure that this… This was my best act as a brother.”

Hanzo cleared his throat, he hadn’t meant to delve quite so deeply into those rough days. He looked up to find Zenyatta smiling at him with bright sincerity.

“Thank you, Hanzo, for bringing Genji to me that day,” he turned a fond smile to his student. “I can say with great honesty that I have learned as much from him as he has from me.”

Hanzo flushed, embarrassed. Genji, who had been silent for the whole exchange, quickly stood and strode over to stand behind his brother. He bent over the back of the couch, wrapping his arms around him in a tight hug and burying his face in his back.

“"ハンゾ...いつも良い兄貴だった...”” he mumbled into his brother’s shoulder.

Hanzo reached up and patted at Genji’s arm, lost for words and unable to speak. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before Genji gave him a final squeeze and released him.

The air was ripe with emotion and well into becoming awkward when Zenyatta lightly chimed in. “Genji, shall we get our gingerbread kits ready?”

Genji scrubbed at his face for a moment before smiling, only a bit subdued. “Yeah… Yeah, I’ll clear the table.”

The two gathered their plates and shuffled off to the kitchen, leaving Hanzo alone for a moment to recuperate and gather himself. As if sensing his unrest, his phone chimed cheerily in his pocket.

                 **Jesse**  |  _How goes pizza night?_ __

A smile formed on Hanzo’s lips.

                 **Me**  |  _My brother and I had a heart-to-heart moment_

                 **Me**  |  _And he cried in front of his friend_

                 **Me**  |  _Now we are making ginger houses_

                 **Jesse**  |  _???_

                 **Jesse**  |  _well that’s… good?_

Hanzo outright laughed at that one.

                 **Me**  |  _I think so_

                 **Jesse**  |  _Well, good!_ _:D ;) :3_

Hanzo chuckled at the message. Jesse tended to get overzealous with the emoji, but it was charming. Another text came in quickly following the last one.  _Business must be slow._

                 **Jesse**  |  _hold up! gingerbread houses!?_ _:O_

                 **Me**  |  _Yes, it will be my first time making one_

                 **Me**  |  _My brother’s friend brought kits_

                 **Jesse**  |  _shoot, sounds like a time!_

                 **Jesse**  |  _I’ll have to have you try my dad’s homemade gingerbread_

                 **Jesse**  |  _it’ll change u_ _:9_

                 **Me**  |  _I look forward to it_

“Hanzo! Quit texting your boyfriend and come make some memories!”

Hanzo rolled his eyes but got up, grabbing his unfinished pizza and quickly chomping it down as he went. Genji and Zenyatta were seated across from each other at the table, their guest opting to assist them both instead of making one for himself. Genji protested but was quickly and gently shushed by his friend and mentor.

This man was a god-send.

Building the gingerbread houses was a lot more difficult than Zenyatta had lead them to believe.

“It’s falling!” Genji shouted, scrabbling to hold the walls of the house upright.

“Your icing is too thin,” Zenyatta noted, with a chuckle, making no moves to help his student. He looked over to where Hanzo was white-knuckling his icing bag, struggling to get it to pour out onto the cookies. “And I believe yours could use some water.”

“I will make it work,” Hanzo protested, fingers stiff when he flexed them.

“Hey, Hanzo.”

“What?” He turned to look at his brother only to get a smear of icing to the beard. With an unholy shriek, Hanzo leapt at his brother, wrestling him in his chair and exacting revenge, covering his hair in green icing and sugary sprinkles.

Their guest had tears in his eyes from laughing, earning him his own smatterings of icing and gumdrops across his head.

One hour, another icing fight, and several stolen gumdrops later, they had two gingerbread… attempts.

Genji’s house was dangerously lopsided, the entire thing coated in a rough layer of icing that he’d given up and smeared on with his fingers. Candies were placed haphazardly around it, one arrangement looking suspiciously phallic.

Hanzo’s on the other hand was a sturdy looking craft decorated almost exclusively with peppermint candies and canes. The decorations were sporadic at best, sticking out at crazy angles from the house in what was possibly supposed to be a whimsical fashion

“Excellent!” Zenyatta clapped, making a show of admiring their efforts. Hanzo wasn’t entirely sure it wasn’t sarcasm.

“Mine is, thank you,” Genji nodded, putting a hand on Hanzo’s shoulder. “Hanzo’s on the other hand—”

He was interrupted by Hanzo shoving a gumdrop up his nose.

“Rude! Ugh!” Genji sputtered, attacking him again with icing-coated fingers, much to Zenyatta’s delight.

“I gotta get a picture of this!” Genji exclaimed, face and hair a sugary mess. Hanzo wasn’t faring any better, but he had to admit he was happy. It was moments like these, when he and his brother got to laugh and  _play_  together that he cherished above all.

Genji situated his phone in his hand to take a group selfie, angling the phone to include all three of them and their masterpieces. Hanzo tried to keep a straight face and failed, Zenyatta threw up a peace sign with a serene grin.

“Perfect!” His brother smiled after several shots. “I’ll send this to you to show your boyfriend.”

Hanzo rolled his eyes, “He is not yet my boyfriend.”

“Yet?” Genji perked up.

Hanzo felt his face redden, even as he smirked at his brother, “We will see where the week takes us.”

The others laughed. Hanzo rinsed off his hands at the sink, futilely scrubbing at his face before he giving up for now. He would have to shower later. Drying his hands, he pulled out his phone, opening his chat with Jesse. He attached the picture Genji took and added the caption:  _I won._

They were nearly through cleaning up the kitchen when Jesse texted back.

                 **Jesse**  |  _This is your new contact photo_ _:D_

=x=x=x=

**Author's Note:**

>  **Translations | Click "Back" on Browser to Return**  
>  いただきます! = Let's Eat!  
> ハンゾ...いつも良い兄貴だった... = Hanzo... You have always been a good big brother...  
> 
> 
> =x=x=x=
> 
>   
> For this fic, I wanted to focus on Hanzo and Genji's relationship. They've had their struggles, but they worked hard to build their bond together, not unlike making a gingerbread house.
> 
> Enjoy bros being bros! ^^
> 
> [Unedited]  
> [Again, please feel free to critique the Japanese if it sounds awkward ^^]
> 
> [Ko-Fi!](https://ko-fi.com/S6S35W8B)


End file.
